Posted on 05/24/2005 7:08:18 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
It really matters where the jobs that Americans lose go. That's what CAFTA is about. It's not about destroying textile jobs in the Carolinas. They're history, anyway--if not this year, then in five years. CAFTA is about keeping work in our hemisphere that would otherwise go to China.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement would cut tariffs on commerce among the United States, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. The Dominican Republic, which is in the Caribbean, also wants to join.
Though President Bush is battling hard for the accord, some observers declare it all but dead. The generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition has just jumped ship. But new Democrats should think again and back CAFTA. So should old Democrats.
Organized labor doesn't want to hear this defeatist talk about managing losses. That's understandable. But while labor has been dealt a bad hand, it still must play the cards. That means choosing the least bad of bad options.
Some labor critics point to NAFTA as a reason to shoot down CAFTA. The 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement covered the United States, Canada and Mexico. Foes of these accords note, for example, that there were 127,000 textile and apparel jobs in South Carolina before NAFTA. Now there are 48,000.
The truth is, the United States was bleeding these kinds of factory jobs decades before NAFTA. And it's unclear how large a part NAFTA has played in the years since.
Many of these jobs were not sucked down to Mexico but over to China and other Asian countries. And of the lost jobs that can be traced to Mexico, how many would have simply gone to China instead, had it not been for NAFTA? Even Mexico has seen factories move to China.
Labor-intensive industries in America continue to fight a hopeless war against competitors paying pennies-an-hour wages. The futility of it all can be seen in the following numbers, provided by A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm:
It costs $135 to make 12 pairs of cotton trousers in the United States. It costs $57 to make the trousers in China and ship them here. It costs $69 to do so in other parts of the world.
In this business, the United States is clearly out of the running. But many low-wage countries are still contenders with China--especially if they can ship their products here tariff-free.
Americans would be better off if their imports came from Managua, rather than Guangdong. After all, our Latin neighbors are more likely to buy the things we have to sell. That's why farmers producing beef, pork and corn are all for these treaties. So are U.S. companies that make machinery, especially for construction.
Then there are foreign-policy considerations. CAFTA partners would include very poor countries with fragile democracies. More trade with the United States could stabilize them--and reduce the pressures on their people to come here illegally. And if the workers make more money, they'll be able to buy more American goods.
Some Democrats argue that these poor countries compete by exploiting their workers. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., for example, opposes the accord because, he says, "the basic rights of working people in Central America are systematically repressed."
He has it backward. Economic desperation creates the conditions for oppression. Workers are strongest where jobs are plentiful. CAFTA could empower workers and lift them from grinding poverty.
Rather than protect jobs that will eventually leave America, labor and its Democratic allies should protect the people who lose them. Trade Adjustment Assistance is a federal program that offers financial help and training for Americans who lose jobs because of imports.
Democrats complain that the program is underfunded, and they are right. So why not make more money for Trade Adjustment Assistance a bargaining chip to win support for CAFTA?
There's no exit door out of this global economy. Parts of the American economy will do well in it; other parts will not. Free trade in the Americas is about joining with our neighbors in a common defense against China's growing power. Those are the true stakes, and fighting futile battles will only distract us from what matters.
bookmark ping
You know how silly this sounds? A dollar is a piece of paper. If we buy something with it and that darn foreigner keeps it (it is gone for good), we just bought something with a check that will never be cashed. That's a bad thing?
You're right. They had no influence when they were only the most populous country or when they joined the nuclear club. Nope, no influence then.
I prefer we give away the store to none of our enemies.
The only free part to any of this is the taxpayer money our government wants to dump on these third world cesspools.
Free for them at least.
Wal-Mart. [chuckle]
BOHICA
I saw that too, but figured it was hyperbole. However, sometimes you cannot tell with these people.
You prefer that the government triple the price Americans pay for sugar? Contributing to American poverty. Maybe you'd like to triple the price we pay for gas? Wouldn't want to send money to foreigners, right? Make all our gas and oil American gas and oil, right? No matter what the cost?
Is your job one of the low skill jobs threatened by foreign competition? We're just curious.
Prove it.
Don't forget to keep asking until you get a reply. Then, when you get a reply that disappoints you, forget that you asked. LOL
Prove that Congress mandates the minimum wage?
Calendar No. 109
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1062
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage .
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled
That's precisely what free trade accomplishes.
The OFFICE OF THE US TRADE REPRESENTATIVE (ustr.gov), estimates that the effect of CAFTA would be to REDUCE the overall US trade deficit by $756 million. It would PRESERVE $4 billion in exports which would otherwise be lost to competition from Asia. In addition, 80% of everthing the five Central American countries send to us today is duty free, CAFTA would open THEIR MARKETS TO US, much more than ours to them. What about those jobs?
Nevertheless, ill-informed domestic critics continue to assert that NAFTA has cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs and, further, is somehow responsible for the lingering recession in U.S. manufacturing. They use NAFTA as an argument against proposed trade agreements with Central American and other Latin American countries. But an objective look at the record shows that none of the dire warnings about the agreement have come true.
They don't give a darn about those jobs. It's a zero-sum game, remember? Costa Rica's gain is our loss.
China has been a member of the nuke club for over 40 years.
And her population has always been the largest. Why now is she rumbling about the world?
Just wondering?
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